My musings, reflections on life here in Shiloh, Israel. Original, personal, spiritual and political. Peace, security and Israeli sovereignty. While not a "group blog," Shiloh Musings includes the voices of other Jews in The Land of Israel.
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Shades of... Taxation Without Representation!

I've been mulling over the pros and cons of blogging about the latest Obama scare, his creative way of subsidizing American health care by taxing expats, those U.S. Passport bearing citizens who reside in other countries. It's funny to think that his own mother would have been billed for health care she couldn't get during parts of her life, if there had been a law like that when she was a young mother. Ironic, but very "Obama."

L'havdil, very different, is the Israeli draft law, which was once strictly enforced on every Israeli citizen, even those residing abroad. The result was that once a foreign-country-living Israeli citizen reached the age of seventeen, he (and some she's) stopped visiting Israel, because they were subject to the draft. It was very difficult to get a temporary exemption, and without it, the young citizen couldn't leave Israel legally.

Today, it's much easier. The policy is to allow non-resident citizens to visit without being forced into the IDF.

Maybe it's just my mind-set as I live in a slower lane taking care of my elderly father, but I just can't believe that the American border control will bill us all for medical care we don't need. If you'd like more information, then just read what Jameel wrote.

The medical care system which presently exists in America is awful, and if they dare make me pay to improve it, I just won't visit. Right now my father is living with us and we're waiting for my mother to join him. Israeli medical care is a good reason to stay in Israel.

in america i got an instant response for a strep test. here i have to wait a day -- and god forbid i go to the doctor on a wednesday afternoon. then i probably wont get the results until sunday. know why? as my doctor said, 'money.'

Daniel, where ever you are in Israel, you're hardly an hour from a good hospital. In the United States, distances and varied level of care mean that many citizens can't get good care. Also, the system there is crazy, different dr deal from the meds. You need a lot of money in the states for something good.

I don't know for a fact, but I suspect that we just didn't bother to check out what money we could get over the years. I don't know about you, but I was just too afraid of the subject of $ to fill out US income tax. I didn't have the income to make it worth paying voluntarily into Social Security, so I won't have that. We recently did fill out IRS returns and we got a little money. In the heyday of making a little more money and having more kids around the house, maybe we could have gotten more.